Daniel Thornhill

postdoctoral scholar, marine biology

Dan Thornhill is interested in the evolution and ecology of marine invertebrates, especially those that form symbioses with eukaryotic or prokaryotic microbes. Ultimately, his research investigates the physiological, ecological, and evolutionary processes driving speciation in marine environments. His past and current research examines a variety of marine organisms and habitats. Recently, he has studied marine organisms from tropical coral reefs, Norwegian fjords, deep-sea methane seeps, and the waters around Antarctica. He plans to continue developing a diverse and collaborative research program while at Bowdoin College. In the near term, much of his work will focus on symbioses in corals and siboglinid annelids. In addition to being also important 'keystone' species in coral reef and chemosynthetic ecosystems, these organisms offer a diversity of both host and symbiont taxa, enabling comparative testing of many ecological and evolutionary hypotheses.